[Music] Okay, we're going to ask Swiss cheese questions next. Swiss cheese. He says, My wife and our four kids lived overseas where we cannot purchase a home. How should people like us plan for a future without a paid-off home going into retirement? We always talk about, 'Oh, you might want to have your home paid off by the time you get to retirement, right?' What about someone who doesn't own a home? Well, you know, Swiss cheese, it's a little interesting that your immediate thought is not Swiss cheese, it's Swiss. I said Swiss, didn't I? Okay, sounded a lot like Swiss. Keep going, Swiss cheese. There you go. You assume that just because you live overseas and just because you live in this country and one day you're going to come back to this country and live here that you won't have a paid-for home. I don't know that I would just immediately default to that position. What you may have to do is while you're overseas, while you're earning an income, while you're building

Wealth while you're growing your portfolio one of the wise that you might be saving for might not just be Financial independent so that my dollars can provide for my living expense living expenses it might be that hey when I come back to the States I want to be able to buy a home and I want to be able to save up enough money that I can buy that home in cash and that I can pay for that home so I wouldn't completely rule out just because you're not ping paying for a home right now that you won't ever have the ability to pay for a home and yet I also want to make sure that home ownership is something that makes sense for you you said my wife and we have four kids well you may decide like as your kids get older and as your kids leave the house and maybe you don't come back until like post kids leaving the house home ownership may not be something that you want I'm amazed at how many people think I have a a dear dear client out in San Francisco and I

had this conversation with her last week, and she's like, I got to buy a house, got to buy a house, got to buy a house, and I said, Why? and she goes, Well, I'm getting older, don't I need a house? and I was like, Well, if you want a house, if that's something that you would derive value out of, but there's nothing wrong with renting, there's nothing wrong with having a place where you rent. You don't have to have a house to be financially independent, you don't have to have a house to be able to build wealth. It certainly can be part of it, but I just think so many people, especially today, are falling into this trap of, 'If I don't buy a house, if I don't own a home, if I don't, then I'm doing something wrong,' and I don't think that I would agree with that sentiment 100% of the time. Agree. Well, I mean, here's the thing, this is why this is a slippery slope on this question is because should you pay, or should you have a paid off house at retirement, yes.

it depends, that's easy. Well, it's easy to want the ideal, of course, but then you got Swiss shows up and he says, Hey, I live overseas. So how am I logistically going to make this work? And this is why personal finance is so personal, is because you're not Swiss, you're not doing anything wrong by not having a house here in the States. I don't want you taking a holiday, coming over here and saying, Let's go buy a house so that 20 years from now this thing will be paid off. I don't, I don't think because being a landlord ACR overseas is not ideal either. Um, but this is why personal is definitely in personal finance because everybody who comes through the doors, I immediately try to triage your situation to figure out what do you need to do because I, I've given you guys the sad story where um, I had somebody that went to church with that their husband had passed away early. They come into some money from him passing away.

and they immediately everybody was like just pay off the house so you can be debt-free. Um, and for a lot of people, maybe that's a great decision to take out that risk of paying off the house, she'd always have shelter. But the problem is she needed some of that money to actually pay for the Sons and living expenses, and all these other things. It was just, it was not that it was a bad decision, but it was a bad decision for her specific needs and where she was with life. So that's why you have to triage every single person that comes in to say, for this person, if you took every bit of their R, if you took a big chunk of their retirement assets to immediately pay cash for a house, what does that do to their financial life? I have some clients that we do do that. We, it sound like I said Doo, um, it does happen. You did say d, well, I didn't mean to, but it, but we do have, we have clients. I was about to do it.

again we have clients where the that that we can look at their financial situation stress test what they need from the assets and there is enough liquidity and assets that we say yes let's go pay cash for this house because that is appropriate for you but then there's other clients I think like this one where Swiss hasn't done anything wrong where you don't necessarily or that person I went to church with that but they needed somebody to do the actual steps to figure out what are what's the why what's the purpose how does this money work um and and this is why we as financial advisers say it depends so swis I I wouldn't stress yourself out about it but I would maybe um as you're looking at your savings and investment rate and you know that you have this goal that you would like to be able to pay more or even have a bigger down payment so that debt management is going to be um easier in retirement take that into account into your savings and investment rate that's how I'd be

proactive in that way. I wouldn't be trying to come to the states to immediately try to scour and find my future retirement 'cause life changes over 15 to 20 years, but I would plan accordingly, create some automatic behavior that at least gives you options, and then when you get to those options, let's triage it and gives you the best personal financial plan that actually reflects your who, what, when, where, and builds your abundance plan.

How Do Americans Overseas Plan for a Successful Retirement? (No Paid-Off Home)

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